What are the bad parts of St. Louis? (Washington, Benton: high crime, hotel)

[mike0421]

If you want a quick mash-up visual on crime, and want to overlay the mapping area with other mapping data, I suggest going here:

http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/vi...?useExisting=1

I've been a member of this site forever, but you don't need a membership to throw together a simple mapping application.

Once you've gotten to the home page, go to the upper left to the "Add" button, which will enable you to search for data. Put in "crime" and you will unearth several layers. Then put whatever other background info, roads for instance, on top of the polygonal boundaries that dileneate neighborhoods by block, census tract, zip code, then as you continue to zoom out, by county. The crime layer, as are the others, are scale-dependent, meaning additional features appear as you zoom in further. Simply click over the polygon to find out the crime information. If you need to see the legend, by color, simply click "Details" next to the Add feature, which will render "Legend". Click on legend, and a swatch of colors and the respective numbers will appear denoting crime indexes.

[looking9]

Are there gangs that travel around from the bad areas to the better areas? Say, for example, Fox Park or Benton Park. Are cars and homes often broken into?

[matt.bruns]

I know the east end, an are around I-44 near the far east end of midtown are really bad, and across the river in East STL is the worst others I don't know about.

[Jakz34]

Looking to take a trip to St. Louis in 1-3 weeks. I'm using Priceline for a hotel and I am wondering if these are good areas:

Downtown



Forest Park




Last time we stayed in the Chesterfield area and it was great but it was a little far from the city for the places we were visiting (Zoo, City Museum, etc.). These places seem to be closer to those areas but I am not sure if they are good areas or not as far as crime and such. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[zach_33]

Yeah, I think you'd be fine with any hotels in those shaded areas but there might be a couple of bad ones in the 1-2 star range, especially in that downtown shaded region, so I would stick with 3+ stars if I were you.

[Dawn10am]

Those are generally fine. The areas north of Delmar Blvd. are a lot sketchier than those south of it, but I don't think there are very many hotels north of Delmar in the areas you shaded, so you should be okay.

[billiken]

I'd bid 4 stars in that area. I've stayed for as low as $50 or so using priceline name your own price at 4 stars downtown.

[Jakz34]

Originally Posted by zach_33

Yeah, I think you'd be fine with any hotels in those shaded areas but there might be a couple of bad ones in the 1-2 star range, especially in that downtown shaded region, so I would stick with 3+ stars if I were you.

When you say bad do you mean hotels, areas or a combination of those two?

Is there one area you would pick over the other?

[Jakz34]

Originally Posted by Dawn10am

Those are generally fine. The areas north of Delmar Blvd. are a lot sketchier than those south of it, but I don't think there are very many hotels north of Delmar in the areas you shaded, so you should be okay.

Delmar? Is that an area that needs to be avoided?

[glamatomic]

A lot of Delmar is fine... but some areas along Delmar and surrounding, not so much.

What blocks of Delmar/surrounds particularly are you looking at?